Updated on 30 August 2026 | Alexander was a 75⅓-ton, 65-foot-long, two-masted, billet-headed schooner built in Scituate in 1847. It went whaling from 1851 to 1869, under a number of different masters: Moses Young II, Martin Cornell, George Cornell, Josiah Snow, Atkins Nickerson, Elijah Dunham, Xenophen S. Rich, Atkins S. Hopkins, and Stephen Atkins Ryder. Ownership was originally divided into 24 shares among 11 men, no one of whom held more than 3 shares — or a ⅛ interest. It was withdrawn from service in 1870.1
1 “Alphabetical List of Ship Registers, District of Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1814-1913, Compiled From Original Documents Stored in the New Bedford Custom House,” prepared by the National Archives Project, 1938, accessible through HathiTrust and American Offshore Whaling Voyages: A Database, by Judith N. Lund, Elizabeth A. Josephson, Randall R. Reeves, and Tim D. Smith; and Mystic Seaport Museum Inc., New Bedford Whaling Museum, and Nantucket Historical Association.